InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Twins Travel Together ❯ Chapter 4 ( Chapter 4 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Chapter 4

 

 

Ignoring the fact that Inuyasha was starting to care for the twin mikos, and that they both had the power to subdue him, he knew that they were the only way he could ever hope to complete the jewel and make his wish.

 

Without a miko, the jewel would corrupt whosoever tried to use it. 

 

Concluding his patrol, Inuyasha growled to himself when he found he couldn’t stop thinking about Kinuki’s words.

 

What she’d said had been true, he didn’t deny that.

 

The way she’d said it though, along with her pain-filled expression when he’d first voiced his wish, was causing him to question himself.

 

Was his wish really the right one? Was there a better one he could make? He wasn’t used to being so indecisive. He knew what he wanted… But was his wish really the best way to get it? 

 

Again, he growled, annoyed that his thoughts were keeping him awake. 

 

The following morning, Inuyasha decided to observe the girls so that they could see him. 

 

Kinuki was the first to stir, waking up less than an hour after he had. The night before he’d been elsewhere when she’d awoken, so it was rather surprising to see a human wake before dawn, though not negatively so. 

 

She got up carefully, taking care so as not to jolt Kagome needlessly, before gently tucking her sister back under the blanket and sending a shockwave of her power outwards. 

 

‘She can do that?’ Inuyasha thought, surprised and silently impressed.

 

He could feel the warm touch of her power pass over him, but only because he had been actively trying to sense it. As it did, Kinuki turned her attention to the tree in which he currently sat. 

 

Smiling and raising a hand in greeting Kinuki called 

 

“Good morning.” 

 

keeping her voice level, since she figured Inuyasha’s hearing would be good enough to hear her without her having to shout. 

 

Leaping down from the tree to land in front of her Inuyasha greeted her back, though not nearly as enthusiastically as she had him. 

 

“We’ve easily got another good hour until Kagome gets up.” Kinuki informed him, receiving a simple nod in response. 

 

“Would you mind training with me while we wait?” Kinuki couldn’t keep the gleeful grin off of her face as she saw Inuyasha’s eyes widen slightly, before his own expression morphed into a competitive smirk. 

 

Instead of answering her, Inuyasha turned and crouched down, jerking his head in an invitation to ride on his back. 

 

Kinuki grinned happily, her aura flaring with joy as she took him up on his invitation and got on his back.

 

The ride was fairly short this time, with Inuyasha arriving at the waterfall Kinuki had discovered earlier on in less than a minute.

 

Letting her down at the base of the waterfall, Inuyasha turned to face her and unleashed an attack of golden power from his claws without so much as a warning. 

 

Kinuki had been anticipating his action though and she quickly jumped back and deflected the stripes of power with a wave of her hand, knowing he hadn’t charged them with a lot of power, for fear that she would be caught unawares by his attack. 

 

Inuyasha grinned then, pleased that he had correctly judged Kinuki’s character and observation skills. He was rather surprised to find that he wasn’t all that bothered by her quick and accurate analysis of his own character. 

 

Jumping into the air, Inuyasha repeated his attack, this time charging the stripes to their full capacity. It was still one of his weaker attacks, but, since it could take out a number of low ranked youkai and he was training, rather than actually fighting, Inuyasha figured it would be best to work his way up to Kinuki’s limit. 

 

“Sankon Tessō!” 

 

Kinuki instinctively looked up at Inuyasha’s call, remembering the name of the attack as she focused on putting up a barrier around herself.

 

She somehow sensed that this attack was stronger than his last, probably because she felt a stronger vibe of power coming from it. 

 

She grunted when the attack hit, but her barrier held, the golden slashes dissipating on its surface like butter in a pan. 

 

Yes, Kinuki was hungry. She hadn’t eaten since they’d left home, but she also knew that an empty stomach could help focus the mind, so she didn’t plan to remedy that anytime soon. 

 

Inuyasha noted Kinuki’s reaction to the power of his attack, mentally debating his next move, before deciding to risk one of his stronger attacks. 

 

Kinuki tensed when she felt the building power within Inuyasha.

 

He’d since landed from his jump, but moved so suddenly that there were only leaves where he’d just been standing. 

 

Alerted by his sudden seriousness, Kinuki drops her barrier, this time focusing much more of her power and channelling a little bit of fear to make another barrier. 

 

Where the first barrier had been an almost transparent, sickly pale, daffodil yellow, this one had a much more vibrant honey-tone, though it was still semi-transparent, and shimmered faintly. 

 

At Inuyasha’s call of “Hijin Kessō” Kinuki finally managed to locate the speedy hanyō, not that his location was overly relevant, the barrier formed a perfect semi-circular bubble around Kinuki, though it didn’t stretch beneath her feet. 

 

He’d been moving between the trees of the forest, an ideal place to attack from, since Kinuki had to face the attack from the front and was blocked by the river behind her, either side completely open terrain, a perfect ambush site. 

 

This time the slashes are red, and a great deal more powerful than Inuyasha’s former attack.

 

It surprises a gasp from her when the two energies collide, and this time, the attack grazes along her barrier, continuing its path on either side of Kinuki. 

 

The miko follows the course of the attack attentively, careful to keep her footing as the impact of the attack practically mauls the ground, making it shake as dirt, leaves and rocks are haphazardly flung about, closely followed by a splash of river water, where the attack finally disperses the last of its energy. 

 

Once the collateral damage has been evaluated, Kinuki being both proud and shocked at Inuyasha’s strength, she decides to see how good Inuyasha’s defence is and locks her gaze with his, dropping her barrier a second later. 

 

Inuyasha freezes for a second when Kinuki meets his gaze, her eyes asking him a question, though her actions don’t give him much time to answer. 

 

He feels a sudden build-up of power coming from Kinuki’s hand, and not a second later does she throw something right at him! 

 

It’s small, but the raw power radiating off of it is telling his every instinct to FLEE. 

 

His instincts having never let him down before, Inuyasha dodges the oncoming projectile.

 

Despite having been thrown by a human girl, the little ball transgresses the distance between Kinuki and Inuyasha with surprising speed.

 

Inuyasha’s eyes lock on to the small marble of power as it flies past, and widen when he realises WHAT exactly it is that he’s seeing. 

 

‘That shouldn’t be possible. It takes Miko YEARS to learn how to concentrate their powers into pure energy without the need for a medium when attacking!’ Inuyasha thinks, but the small marble whizzing by is exactly what he thinks it is. 

 

The moment it collides with a boulder that had been behind Inuyasha, the rock smashes into thousands of tiny pebbles, some of them splintering nearby trees as they fly out of control… and the marble keeps flying. 

 

Inuyasha turns a narrowed gaze to Kinuki, taking in her expression at a glance. 

 

She was wide-eyed, slack-jawed and, stated plain and simple, totally shocked. 

 

Ok, so she’d had no clue that what happened would happen, meaning that she’d had no menacing intent when she’d attacked him. If anything, she had probably wanted to see if he had any defences.

 

While miko powers were usually used to defend, youkai powers were almost always centred around strength and offense… On a different topic, the marble was still moving forward, toward the fringe of the forest. 

 

“Kinuki!” His voice rouses the young miko, which, Inuyasha notices, makes the little marble cease its movement, though it doesn’t dissipate either. 

 

Turning her gaze from the crater where the boulder had once stood, Kinuki’s eyes find Inuyasha’s, and if he’d still doubted her motives, seeing her misty, pleading and guilt-ridden eyes erased them completely. 

 

“I-I-I-I-I-I’m so s-sorry.”

 

Inuyasha felt his heart clench as Kinuki apologised. 

 

Her hands were trembling as they covered her mouth, and she was openly crying now. 

No doubt somehow certain she’d ruined their still-developing trust.

 

The scent of her tears stung his nose, though it also seemed to cleanse her scent somewhat. 

 

The first time he’d met her, all he’d really noticed was the energy signature of her miko powers. It was only when he’d helped her up the tree that he’d taken note of her scent.

 

That night she’d smelled just like her sister. 

 

Now though, he realised that the honey part of her scent had some sort of smokey aspect, almost like caramel, but not as strong.

 

A quiet sob pulled Inuyasha out of his thoughts.

He’d been quiet too long. 

 

“Oi…”

 

As soon as he spoke, Kinuki lifted her face away from her hands, the last of her tears drying in glistening trails down her cheeks. 

 

“You don’t have to apologise.”

 

He scratched his head, uncomfortable in this strange position of comforting someone else. 

 

“You didn’t intend to attack me, you just wanted to test your power and they were stronger than you thought.”

 

She sniffed, her eyes wide and hopeful. 

 

“So… we’re good?” She asked, wiping the last traces of tears away with her shirt. 

 

Inuyasha didn’t dignify that question with a verbal response, merely nodding to affirm the obvious. 

 

He was almost knocked over when Kinuki practically flung herself around his neck, squealing happily the whole while.

 

Inuyasha instantly clamped his hands over his ears. 

 

“Gods woman, shut up!” He yells at her, which makes her stop shrieking, although she soon dissolves into a fit of giggles as she looks up to see what her voice had done.

 

Kinuki had to say, Inuyasha made a funny picture with his clawed hands holding down his sensitive ears, while he himself frowned down at her. 

 

Trying to stifle her laughter at the picture he made, Kinuki slowly detached herself from Inuyasha’s neck, letting herself drop back to the ground and taking a step back before apologising again. 

 

To Inuyasha, her tone wasn’t the least bit apologetic, but he supposed that was due to the fact that her main focus was currently keeping her chuckles under control. 

 

Waiting for her expression to take a more serious edge, Inuyasha then asked his question. 

 

“What is that thing?”

 

Moving her gaze to where the little power orb was still hovering in front of the forest’s fringe, Kinuki re-establishes her connection to the little marble of power, calling it back to settle over the palm of her hand. 

 

“I don’t really know…” The young miko murmurs, examining her small weapon, confusion clear in her expression. 

 

“I was practising my powers yesterday, and I wanted to try manifesting them into a solid form. Something I could use if I was ever in danger and a barrier wouldn’t work.” Kinuki continued, forcing the little orb to disperse in a wispy flame of yellowy gold. 

 

Raising her gaze to see why Inuyasha was being so quiet, Kinuki found herself confronted with a rather perplexed expression. 

 

“You DO know that you can charge any odd object with your power and use that to attack something or defend yourself, right?

It takes up a whole lot less energy and is still just as effective.

Kikyō usually relied on her holy arrows when fighting.” Inuyasha said slowly, hardly able to believe that she hadn’t known that. 

 

For her part, Kinuki was staring up at Inuyasha with disbelieving eyes, slowly starting to see how simple the solution to her problem was. 

 

“R-really?!” She finally said, dropping her gaze to the ground as soon as Inuyasha nodded. 

 

Finding a flat pebble near her feet, Kinuki picked it up and tried directing her powers into it.

 

Almost immediately the little rock started glowing yellow, the light growing brighter the more power Kinuki gave it.

However, the exercise hardly left an impact on her.

Unlike the pure use of her powers, using a medium barely fatigued her. 

 

With the pebble acting as a mini sun in Kinuki’s hand, Inuyasha had to shield his eyes and take a few steps back. 

 

His movement brought Kinuki out of her thoughts, and she immediately retracted her power from the rock back into herself…

She hadn’t known she could do that either. 

 

“I’m sorry… I wasn’t thinking.” She apologises again, and Inuyasha drops his raised arm to let her see him roll his eyes at her incessant apologising. 

 

“Keh. No harm done. It won’t have the durability of your little orb thing, but the first hit will have the same power as it did.” He explains, and Kinuki smiles up at him.

 

“That’s good to know. It’s definitely easier to infuse something with my power, as opposed to giving them a solid form.” 

 

Inuyasha nodded, having both hoped and known that to be the case. 

 

“…Want to race to the top?” Kinuki suddenly asks, pointing to the top of the waterfall. 

 

She grins when she sees his lips quirk up, taking off the instant he nods his agreement. 

 

Scaling the waterfall, the same way she had the morning before, she reaches the top in record time, red faced and a little out of breath, pouting when she sees Inuyasha sitting by the waterfall with a bored look. 

 

“Never challenge a demon to a race.” He advises, smirking boastfully as he gives her a hand up. 

 

“Did you even climb up here?” Kinuki sighs, shaking her head, though mirth sparks her eyes as she awaits his reply. 

 

“Keh. No. It’s not that high up.” He replies. 

 

“Right. Why did I even bother asking?” Kinuki mumbles to herself. 

 

“Well… If you want, would you mind teaching me how to fight, you know, without my powers?” The young miko asks, almost sheepishly. 

 

She gets a raised eyebrow in response. Inuyasha’s non-verbal communication serving to unnerve the young miko even more so. 

 

“I mean, you don’t have to, but, I don’t really know how to defend myself in this…”

 

She waved her hand in a circular motion as she tried to think of how to describe the when of where she was. 

 

“…this time and my powers won’t work on just anyone, so it’s probably best if I know at least some type of fighting style.” She was starting to ramble. 

 

They hadn’t known each other all that long and their trust was freshly forged, but Kinuki knew that if, for whatever reason, she or Kagome were attacked, unless Inuyasha protected them like he had her from the centipede demon, they would be easily beat. 

 

Taking a calming breath, Kinuki only had a second to process that the boulder on which Inuyasha had been sitting was now occupied by nothing but air. 

 

Her brow furrowed into a puzzled expression.

 

Had he left? So suddenly?

Kinuki shook the thought away.

 

No, it wasn’t his style… Though it was very much his style to let his actions speak above words.

 

As soon as the thought crystalized, Kinuki took on a defensive stance, forcing herself to keep her powers untapped and her human guard up as best she could.

 

A smirk now rested on her lips. Playful, competitive, trusting, but her eyes were a sharp, clear blue and piercing silver. 

 

The random rustling of some leaves, immediately turned her attention to a grove of trees to her right. 

 

Either, he was purposely trying to act like a human attacker, or he was about to give her a lesson in concentration when dealing with strangers. 

 

Her first thought was proven true, when Inuyasha raced out of the forest, a stick that she supposed was supposed to portray a weapon in each hand.

 

He tossed her one, proceeding to attack her as soon as she’d caught the wooden weapon. 

 

It quickly became apparent, that Inuyasha’s approach was rather simple. 

 

Be prepared for ANYTHING. 

 

Kinuki knew that he was restraining his demonic strength quite a bit, but even then, she was constantly on the defensive.

 

She knew she couldn’t hurt Inuyasha, and not just because of her morals either, but her continued failure was starting to make her angry. 

 

She wasn’t paying attention to her surroundings, her strikes were fierce, for a human, but unfocused, and her stance left her with far too many openings, which Inuyasha was more than happy to point out. 

 

Needing to know no more, the hanyou ended the farce of a sparring match with one deft strike that knocked Kinuki’s stick out of her hand. 

 

Almost instantly, Kinuki leaned forward to rest her sweaty hands on her shaking knees. Her breathing was ragged and every strand of hair that had managed to break free from her ponytail was plastered to her forehead, cheeks and neck.

 

She’d never had a workout like that before, every muscle ached, and she had a number of new bruises and surficial lacerations focused on her arms, legs and right side. 

 

Inuyasha, on the other hand, hadn’t even counted that as a warm-up. 

 

“Keh. You humans sure are weak.” He said, walking around her and waiting for her to meet his gaze.

 

She did, a bright glare of frustrated blue and silver.

 

The emotion and determination in her eyes was enough to surprise a smirk out of the hanyou, though this time it expressed that he was proud of her, as opposed to his usual pride and confidence in his own skill. 

 

“Remember that. You can’t be something you’re not, but, that gives you the chance to better what you already are.” Inuyasha keeps looking at Kinuki, waiting as her fiery expression melts into one of irritation and confusion. 

 

Sighing, Inuyasha uses his foot to flick Kinuki’s weapon into the air. 

 

She reacts immediately, catching the spinning object with the precision and grace of a practised swordswoman. 

 

And that was the catch.

 

She fought best when she wasn’t thinking. Her natural instincts already honed to react and protect, even if she herself was unaware of it. 

 

“What was that for?” Kinuki asks, lowering the branch to let it hang down her side, a mimicked form he’d used when he’d first approached her with the two makeshift weapons… and she didn’t realise she was doing it. 

 

Inuyasha sighed. She wouldn’t understand if he tried to explain her instincts and abilities to her, they were things that had to be felt and experienced and honed through practice, it wasn’t possible to explain them logically. 

 

“Keh. Your reflexes aren’t half bad, but your stance is way too open and your strikes are too unfocused to really do any damage. Here.” 

 

Taking Kinuki by the arm, Inuyasha carefully set her body into the ideal position for a sword fighter.

 

Her feet planted firmly on the ground, her legs a little further apart and her knees slightly bent to better keep her balance. Both arms raised to increase her defensive capacity and her dominant hand extending into whatever weapon she later chose to wield. 

 

“Not bad.” Inuyasha said, circling her to appraise his work.

 

There were still flaws, of course, but, judging by her tendency to learn without realising it, he was pretty sure most of what he’d shown her would stick. 

 

“You keep looking at your weapon. Don’t. You know what it is, what it feels like and everything else necessary, you need to focus on aiming it at a target location.” Inuyasha explains, demonstrating by using his stick to hit the ground in front of her, and cause a rather obvious, if small crater to appear in the earth. 

 

Kinuki nods, filing the information away to be used later.

 

She huffed at his former remark though.

 

It was an easy enough pose, but she hadn’t meant for him to teach her to fight with weapons! Not to mention that she wasn’t quite comfortable thinking of the stick in her hand as a sword of some sort, the thought unbalanced her.

 

She’d wanted to learn a more hand-to-hand combat type of thing. Well, at least she knew she just had to be blunt if she wanted Inuyasha to understand what she wanted next time. 

 

“Think we could try some hand-to-hand next time?” Kinuki asked, she was still a little miffed at being so thoroughly beaten, although she had been anticipating it, but she also knew that the act of training had exhilarated her. 

 

At her question though, Inuyasha dropped his eyes to the newly formed crater at his feet. 

 

“Yeah… But I won’t hold back as much as I did this time then.” He finally answers her, his voice seemingly strained, more of a growl than usual, as though he were fighting with himself, though he tries to play it off with a competitive look. 

 

His phrasing gave Kinuki pause though.

 

She knew that he knew that she wasn’t ready to take much more than she had just then. Why the threat then?

 

Unless… it wasn’t so much a threat, as it was a warning. 

 

She remembered how perplexed he’d been that she hadn’t known how easy it was to channel her powers into objects. How he’d taken the ambiguity of her question and put himself into the role of a human attacker.

 

He’d come at her with a stick, he probably would’ve taking anything so long as it allowed him to thin his own power.

 

If it was so easy to direct power outward, how difficult must it have been for him to suppress it? How much more difficult was it to hold back without a storage medium?

 

Slowly, Kinuki started walking toward Inuyasha.

 

His eyes turned wary, but he didn’t try to leave, despite Kinuki knowing how silence unnerved him. An ironic fact considering his aversion to the vocal communication form.

 

Soon she was just a step away.

 

She’d been so focused on making it as fair a fight as possible, that her attempts to repress her own aura had made her blind to it at the time, but there was an enormous store of Inuyasha’s demonic energy in the branch he held, his grip was tight too. 

 

“You know… you can probably take that back now.” Kinuki said, cocking her head to the side as she gifted Inuyasha with an understanding and thankful smile. 

 

She was met with a suddenly surprised expression, though it soon melted into a chuckle as Inuyasha decided that they really had trained enough, for the time being. 

 

It was eye-opening to see the process of retracting energy from an outward perspective.

 

The swirl of Inuyasha’s power seemed to almost be sucked out of the branch, only to merge with its original source as though one were pouring a glass of water into a lake. 

 

Casting the sticks aside, Kinuki suddenly perks up as a thought occurs to her.

 

Inuyasha notes the change in her posture, but doesn’t get a chance to comment on it, before she quickly strips off her shoes and sock, wraps them up in her jumper and throws the entire bundle down the side of the waterfall, nodding to herself when she sees it land on the shore next to the river. 

 

Inuyasha merely quirks an eyebrow at her while cocking his head to the side in a questioning manner. 

 

Kinuki grins at that, glad to see that he’s trusting her. She takes a few steps back, before running toward the waterfall. 

 

“…See you down there!” She calls, just before jumping over the edge of the cliff, at a diagonal angle that ensured she’d land at the base of the waterfall. 

 

Seeing the young miko suddenly hurl herself off the edge of the cliff wasn’t exactly what Inuyasha had pictured when she’d sent him that look, asking him to trust her.

 

He’d seen Kagome swim before, but he hadn’t realised that Kinuki would be able to do the same, nor that she’d choose such a dangerous way to get down from the top of their training ground.  

 

It was only the memory of her gaze that enabled Inuyasha to supress his instincts, which were practically screaming at him to intervene and catch her.

 

The second he hears the splash of Kinuki hitting the water, he’s down by the riverside.

 

He may want to trust the young miko, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t worried she’d somehow gotten hurt and wouldn’t be able to get out of the water either. 

 

He may have been unwilling to admit it, but Kinuki had quickly found herself a little place in his heart that cared about her. Something that he rarely ever let happen, in such a short amount of time no less… and she wasn’t the only one with a new place in his human heart either.

 

Inuyasha was pulled from his thoughts by the rush of water and gasping breathes of Kinuki coming up for air and swimming over to the riverbank. 

 

Turning her head left and right as she hefted herself out of the water, Inuyasha caught her tiny sigh as she mumbled to herself. 

 

“Damn, I thought I was closer.” Pouting a little at having underestimated the strength of the current directly under the waterfall. 

 

“Come on, water sprite, that hour or whatever you said is probably up by now.” Inuyasha said, offering her a hand to help her up. 

 

Kinuki took the proffered hand without a second thought, smiling as Inuyasha hefted her to her feet and she noted her clothes in his other hand. 

 

For his part, Inuyasha still couldn’t get over how trusting Kinuki was.

 

She didn’t even flinch when his claws closed around her hand, let alone have even a hint of worry in her expression at being so close to him. He was glad that she didn’t, but her open trust could easily be used against her if she wasn’t careful… and something told him she wasn’t really the careful type. 

 

For the first time in a long time, Inuyasha found himself worrying about someone other than himself.

 

Sure, he knew he could teach the two girls to defend themselves physically, but, should they embark on this quest to reunite the jewel shards, they would need more than physical prowess to survive.

 

He knew he wouldn’t be able to protect them all the time.

 

The fact that he was even considering protecting someone else was rather new and yet Inuyasha couldn’t really see himself in any other situation. 

 

He’s pulled from his thoughts by two small hands waving back and forth in front of his face. 

 

“Hello? Earth to Inuyasha?” Kinuki smiles slightly when she finally sees Inuyasha’s eyes focus on her. 

 

“I’m done changing, we can go now, even though we still have a little bit of time before Kagome wakes up anyway.” She adds, once she’s sure she has Inuyasha’s attention.

 

The half-demon gives his usual reply to that, crouching to let her get on his back for the journey back. 

 

The way he turns his head and jerks it in the direction of the village, his eyes moving to invite her on board have Kinuki giggling softly. 

 

He was such a sweetheart, honestly. 

 

If Inuyasha hadn’t been paying such close attention to her, he would’ve missed the faltering of one of her steps as she made her way over to him, the way her eyes seemed drawn to something behind him, how her power seemed to flare in the silver of her left eye. 

 

She didn’t say anything though, so he decided to leave it be. 

 

Kinuki however, had to invest every ounce of self-control not to jump several feet into the air when she saw a rather clear picture of a soul hovering next to Inuyasha.

 

It would appear that someone wanted to talk to her… Later. 

 

When they returned, Kinuki was rather surprised to find that Kagome was indeed awake, and, thanks to Inuyasha, she managed to locate her in Kaede’s hut. 

 

The half demon wrinkled his nose and Kinuki drew aside the door of the hut, opting to stay outside, while Kinuki entered the abode to discuss the happenings of the day before, and what the twins would do in the future. 

 

- - - - - 

 

Author's Note 

 

Now, before you get mad at me for coming between Kagome and Inuyasha, hear me out. 

 

I decided to make Kinuki the key that unlocks a part Inuyasha's heart, simply because I want the two of them to have a close sibling bond! 

 

Without giving too much away, I think I can tell you that I do plan on splitting up the twins somewhere along the line... That MEANS that Kinuki is in a different picture (not out of it!), while Kagome and Inuyasha grow closer. 

 

Anyway, I'd be happy if you leave me a comment! 

 

Until the next chapter, 

 

Tora